Sam Snead quotes:
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To be consistently effective, you must put a certain distance between yourself and what happens to you on the golf course. This is not indifference, it's detachment.
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The only place that's holier than St. Andrews is Westminster Abbey.
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If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they'd starve to death.
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Forget your opponents; always play against par.
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Correct one fault at a time. Concentrate on the one fault you want to overcome.
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Until you play it, St. Andrews looks like the sort of real estate you couldn't give away.
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Never let up. The more you can win by, the more doubts you put in the other players' minds the next time out.
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A bad putter is like a bad apple in a barrel. First, it turns your chipping game sour. Then it begins to eat into your irons and finally it just cleans the head off your driver.
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These greens are so fast I have to hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow.
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When I swing at a golf ball right, my mind is blank and my body is loose as a goose.
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Practice puts brains in your muscles.
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I give the ball some sweet talk. I tell it that this isn't going to hurt a bit. I'm a friend and all I'm going to do is give it a nice little ride.
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Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.
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Those who go along get along.
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Good golfing temperament falls between taking it with a grin or shrug and throwing a fit.
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There is an old saying: if a man comes home with sand in his cuffs and cockleburs in his pants, don't ask him what he shot.
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No matter what happens - never give up a hole....In tossing in your cards after a bad beginning you also undermine your whole game, because to quit between tee and green is more habit-forming than drinking a highball before breakfast.
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Of the mental hazards, being scared is the worst. When you get scared, you get tense.
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Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot.
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The mark of a great player is in his ability to come back. The great champions have all come back from defeat.
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Golf got complicated when I had to wear shoes and begin thinking about what I was doing.
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Over the years I've studied the habits of golfers. I know what to look for. Watch their eyes. Fear shows up when there is an enlargement of the pupils. Big pupils lead to big scores.
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The only reason I ever played in the first place was so I could afford to hunt and fish.
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Keep close count of your nickels and dimes, stay away from whiskey, and never concede a putt.
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Golf course architects make me sick. They can't play themselves, so they rig the courses so nobody else can play either.
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The greens are so fast I have to hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow.
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But you don't have to go up in the stands and play your foul balls. I do.
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But, no, I don't feel my career has not been fulfilled because I didn't win the US Open. It's like the guy said: You going to crucify a man because he missed a putt to win a tournament? Does a three-foot putt mean his whole life? Another guy said, well, he couldn't win the big one. Well, Jesus, what do you call those others? What's big and what's small?
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Don't just play your way around the course. Think your way around way around the course.
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First and fore-most, you must have confidence. Your second mental problem is concentration. Think the shot through in advance before you address the ball. Draw a mental image of where you want it to go and then eliminate everything else from your mind, except how you are going to get the ball into that preferred spot.
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Golf is played with the arms.
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Golf tip: Lay off for three weeks and then quit for good.
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Grip the club as if you were holding a baby bird.
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I believe in destiny...what's going to be is going to be. If I'm going to win, I'm going to win...I don't give a damn what the other guy shoots. I'm going to win if it's my turn.
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I hope I'll never get too old to want to take part in this event, and I don't think I will ever age that much.
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I looked like a monkey trying to wrestle a football.
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I shot a wild elephant in Africa thirty yards from me, and it didn't hit the ground until it was right at my feet. I wasn't a bit scared. But a four foot putt scares me to death.
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I was a better player at 50 than I was at 30.
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I'd say that golf is about 75% mental. If your state of mind gets out of kilter, you're worse off than a tomcat floating on a log.
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If I could have shot 69 in the last round every time, I would have won nine U.S. Opens. Nine!
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If I had cleared the trees and drove the green, it would've been a great shot.
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In golf, as in life, you get out of it what you put into it.
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I've been on some fairways that are as good as the greens we putted on back then. We had crab grass. I remember one green where I putted through ants.
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I've gotten rid of the yips four times but they hang in there. You know those two-foot downhill putts with a break? I'd rather see a rattlesnake.
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Just have a Coke or something and watch the boys go past.
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Make the basic shot-making decision early, clearly and firmly, and then ritualize all the necessary acts of preparation.
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Most people who play golf have one big trouble: they think too much. To get any real mileage out of this game you've got to sit on your imagination.
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Playing golf is like eating. It's something which has to come naturally.
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Practice your swing until it becomes a habit of mind and muscle.
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That little white ball is always staring back at you, daring you to make a mistake.
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The fact that Slammin' Sammy couldn't win the Open made it all the more valuable for the players that did win. Gave it a special quality. I'd say a part of the sheen on that trophy comes from my sweat.
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The fairways were so narrow you had to walk down them single file.
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The only thing I fear on a golf course is lightning...and Ben Hogan.
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The three things I fear most in golf are lightning, Ben Hogan and a downhill putt.
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There are no short hitters on the tour anymore - just long and unbelievably long.
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Thinking instead of acting is the number one golf disease.
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To quit between tee and green is more habit-forming than drinking a highball before breakfast.
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To win you must have talent and desire  but desire is first.
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What abandoned course is that?
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What did I want with prestige? The British Open paid the winner $600 in American money. A man would have to be two hundred years old at that rate to retire from golf.
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When I ask you what club to use, look the other way and don't answer.
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You can't go into a shop and buy a good game of golf.
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You have more potential than you think.
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'You know Bobby, when I was your age I'd drive the ball right over those trees at the corner.' Feeling challenged Mr. Cole hit a big driver right into those big trees. Snead then said 'Of course, when I was your age, those trees were only 10 feet high.'
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You've just one problem. You stand too close to the ball after you've hit it.